Identifying a beautiful image in nature is easy, but capturing it is often challenging. To truly seize the essence of a photograph shot out of the studio and in the world requires an artistic eye and impeccable set of photographic techniques. John and Barbara Gerlach have been teaching photographers how to master the craft of photographing nature and the outdoors through their workshops and best-selling books for more than twenty years. Now, equipped with brand new images to share and skills to teach, this celebrated photo team is sharing their latest lessons in the second edition of Digital Nature Photography.

Notable revisions in this new edition include introducing the concepts of focus stacking and HDR, as well as expanded discussions of multiple exposure, wireless flash, RGB histograms, live view, shutter priority with auto ISO, hand-held shooting techniques, and the author’s equipment selections. The inspiring imagery in this book covers a broader range of subjects than before including ghost towns, the night sky, animals, and sports, in addition to the classic nature photographs we expect from this very talented author team. This book is a comprehensive guide to one of the broadest subjects in photography, explained and demystified by two respected masters.

Guest Judges: John and Barbara Gerlach

John and Barbara Gerlach are professional nature photographers and teachers who have taken more than a million wildlife images since 1978 and run seminars and workshops all over the world. Their pictures have been published in Outdoor Photographer, Audubon, Popular Photography, National Wildlife, Sierra, Natural History, Petersen’s Photographic, Ranger Rick, Birder’s World, as well as books published by National Geographic Society, Sierra Club and others. John Gerlach is currently the Associate Editor for Nature Photographer magazine and together they have written four additional books for Focal Press – Digital Wildlife Photography, Digital Landscape Photography, and Close Up Photography in Nature. They are currently working on yet another book, Outdoor Flash Photography.

For this year’s photo contests, Focal Press has partnered with Viewbug.com. Viewbug.com is a beautiful platform and it is very easy to use, as you will see!

ViewBug is an online photo contest community that provides the opportunity for photographers to share photos with chances to win prizes. With ViewBug, everyone can get an opportunity to be discovered. Unlike other photography competitions, ViewBug makes the photography contests fun and social by providing prizes by the best brands in the industry and including the most influential photographers as judges. Participants can also help judges select winners with a social media voting tool. ViewBug provides a slick profile to showcase your photos and different memberships to accommodate any type of photographer.

2015 Photo Contest Structure:

• This year there will be 6 contests

• Each contest will run for 8 weeks

• Entries can be uploaded during the first 6 weeks of the contest window

• During the last 2 weeks of the contest window, the contest will be open for voting.

Prizes:

The prizes are bigger and better than ever! Check to see what the prizes are for each contest.

For each contest there will be:

• A Grand Prize Winner and 2 Runner Up Winners that will be chosen by our Guest Judge.

• A People’s Choice Winner for the photo with the most votes.

Winners will be announced within 10 days of the contest closing.

Rules:

Photos: Share your best shot that fits the contest’s theme. Be creative and original!

Limit: 3 entries per participant

Participation: You must own all legal rights to submitted photos

Photo Format: Color, Black and White, edited formats are accepted

Copyright: You maintain the rights to all of your submissions

Judging: The contest winner will be selected based on the creativity, originality and quality of the photo in accordance to the contest’s theme.

Promotion: Focal Press would like to use the winning photos to promote the contests on our Focalpress.com website, our MasteringPhoto.com blog and our Facebook page. We will check with the winners for permission to use their photos in this capacity before posting.

The difference between seeing and looking is essential—much like the difference, in music, between hearing and listening. In Creative Visualization, master photographer, photo educator and photo instructor Rick Sammon presents his proven methodology for creative digital photography. His signature inspiring and motivating approach opens creative avenues for photographers in a variety of genres.

With easy-to-follow examples, Sammon shows you how simple changes—with visualization, composition, post-processing, and more—can mean the difference between a snapshot and a great shot. This book, illustrated with more than 300 of Rick’s photographs, includes invaluable information about exposure, composition, subject choice, lighting, mood, and depth.

Guest Judge: Rick Sammon

Award-winning photographer Rick Sammon is a man on a mission – a mission to make learning digital image-making fun, creative, exciting and reward. He has published 36 books (including seven children’s books), offers 11 iPad and iPhone apps, and has more than a dozen online classes. He is a regular columnist for Digital Photo and Adventure Collection.com. Rick hosts inspirational, photography and Photoshop shows on kelbytraining.com, and runs more than a dozen photography workshops and presentations around the world each year. Rick was named on of the best photographers by Squarespace.com and one of the best travel photographers by Chillisauce.com. He reaches his wide audience of photo enthusiasts through his blog, books, how-to videos, iPhone and iPad apps, the Digital Photo Experience podcast and an expanding following (almost a million total at the time of this publication) on social media. He also presents at Photoshop World. He is also a Canon Explorer of Light, a Westcott Top Pro Elite, Lexar Pro, and a x-rite Coloratti. Rick also plays guitar, bass guitar and keyboards, one of his great joys in life. See www.ricksammon.com for more information.

For this year’s photo contests, Focal Press has partnered with Viewbug.com. Viewbug.com is a beautiful platform and it is very easy to use, as you will see!

ViewBug is an online photo contest community that provides the opportunity for photographers to share photos with chances to win prizes. With ViewBug, everyone can get an opportunity to be discovered. Unlike other photography competitions, ViewBug makes the photography contests fun and social by providing prizes by the best brands in the industry and including the most influential photographers as judges. Participants can also help judges select winners with a social media voting tool. ViewBug provides a slick profile to showcase your photos and different memberships to accommodate any type of photographer.

2015 Photo Contest Structure:

• This year there will be 6 contests

• Each contest will run for 8 weeks

• Entries can be uploaded during the first 6 weeks of the contest window

• During the last 2 weeks of the contest window, the contest will be open for voting.

Prizes:

The prizes are bigger and better than ever! Check to see what the prizes are for each contest.

For each contest there will be:

• A Grand Prize Winner and 2 Runner Up Winners that will be chosen by our Guest Judge.

• A People’s Choice Winner for the photo with the most votes.

Winners will be announced within 10 days of the contest closing.

Rules:

Photos: Share your best shot that fits the contest’s theme. Be creative and original!

Limit: 3 entries per participant

Participation: You must own all legal rights to submitted photos

Photo Format: Color, Black and White, edited formats are accepted

Copyright: You maintain the rights to all of your submissions

Judging: The contest winner will be selected based on the creativity, originality and quality of the photo in accordance to the contest’s theme.

Promotion: Focal Press would like to use the winning photos to promote the contests on our Focalpress.com website, our MasteringPhoto.com blog and our Facebook page. We will check with the winners for permission to use their photos in this capacity before posting.

Light Science and Magic provides you with a comprehensive theory of the nature and principles of light, with examples and instructions for practical application. Featuring photographs, diagrams, and step-by-step instructions, this celebrated book, now in its fifth edition, speaks to photographers of varying levels. It provides invaluable information on how to light the most difficult subjects, such as surfaces, metal, glass, liquids, extremes (black-on-black and white-on-white), and portraits.

In memory of co-author Fil Hunter who passed away in 2014.

Fil Hunter was a highly respected commercial photographer specializing in still life and special effects photographs for advertising and editorial illustration. During a career spanning over three decades, he worked for such clients as America Online, US News, Time-Life Books, Life Magazine (27 covers), the National Science Foundation, and National Geographic. He taught photography at the university level and served as technical consultant on a number of photographic publications. Mr. Hunter won the Virginia Professional Photographer’s Grand Photographic Award three times.

Guest Judges: Steven Biver and Paul Fuqua

Steven Biver has over twenty years of experience as a commercial photographer specializing in portraits, still life, photomontage, and digital manipulation. His client list includes Johnson & Johnson, USDA, William & Mary College, Condé Nast, and IBM. He has been honored with awards from Communication Arts, Graphis, HOW Magazine, and Adobe, who have also included his work on a Photoshop ‘extras’ disc to inspire other photographers.

Paul Fuqua has worked as an editorial and wildlife photographer for more than thirty-five years. He started his own production company in 1970 and is dedicated to teaching through the use of visuals. Paul has written and produced educational and training material in a variety of fields including law, public safety, history, science, and the environment. For the last ten years he has produced educational material dealing with the natural sciences and the need for global habitat stewardship.

For this year’s photo contests, Focal Press has partnered with Viewbug.com. Viewbug.com is a beautiful platform and it is very easy to use, as you will see!

ViewBug is an online photo contest community that provides the opportunity for photographers to share photos with chances to win prizes. With ViewBug, everyone can get an opportunity to be discovered. Unlike other photography competitions, ViewBug makes the photography contests fun and social by providing prizes by the best brands in the industry and including the most influential photographers as judges. Participants can also help judges select winners with a social media voting tool. ViewBug provides a slick profile to showcase your photos and different memberships to accommodate any type of photographer.

2015 Photo Contest Structure:

• This year there will be 6 contests

• Each contest will run for 8 weeks

• Entries can be uploaded during the first 6 weeks of the contest window

• During the last 2 weeks of the contest window, the contest will be open for voting.

Prizes:

The prizes are bigger and better than ever! Check to see what the prizes are for each contest.

For each contest there will be:

• A Grand Prize Winner and 2 Runner Up Winners that will be chosen by our Guest Judge.

• A People’s Choice Winner for the photo with the most votes.

Winners will be announced within 10 days of the contest closing.

Rules:

Photos: Share your best shot that fits the contest’s theme. Be creative and original!

Limit: 3 entries per participant

Participation: You must own all legal rights to submitted photos

Photo Format: Color, Black and White, edited formats are accepted

Copyright: You maintain the rights to all of your submissions

Judging: The contest winner will be selected based on the creativity, originality and quality of the photo in accordance to the contest’s theme.

Promotion: Focal Press would like to use the winning photos to promote the contests on our Focalpress.com website, our MasteringPhoto.com blog and our Facebook page. We will check with the winners for permission to use their photos in this capacity before posting.

Capturing the Moment is about a gesture, an expression, a ball in the net, a whale breaching, like Marilyn Monroe’s skirt flying up or Alfred Eisenstaedt’s image of a kiss between a soldier and nurse in Times Square. Moments in all forms are the true core of photography, and this book will explain how to anticipate them, recognise them, choose them, and capture them, through the eyes and wisdom of award-winning, international photographer and celebrated author Michael Freeman.

Michael Freeman is a renowned international photographer with over 40 years of experience shooting for a vast number of editorial clients, notably the Smithsonian magazine, Time-Life Books and National Geographic. He has over 100 books published around the world, with over three million in print, including the best-selling The Photographer’s Eye. For his educational work, he was awarded the Prix Louis Philippe Clerc by the French Ministry of Culture, and he is also responsible for the distance-learning courses on photography at the UK’s Open College of the Arts.

For this year’s photo contests, Focal Press has partnered with Viewbug.com. Viewbug.com is a beautiful platform and it is very easy to use, as you will see!

ViewBug is an online photo contest community that provides the opportunity for photographers to share photos with chances to win prizes. With ViewBug, everyone can get an opportunity to be discovered. Unlike other photography competitions, ViewBug makes the photography contests fun and social by providing prizes by the best brands in the industry and including the most influential photographers as judges. Participants can also help judges select winners with a social media voting tool. ViewBug provides a slick profile to showcase your photos and different memberships to accommodate any type of photographer.

2014 Photo Contest Structure:

• This year there will be 6 contests

• Each contest will run for 8 weeks

• Entries can be uploaded during the first 6 weeks of the contest window

• During the last 2 weeks of the contest window, the contest will be open for voting.

Prizes:

The prizes are bigger and better than ever! Check to see what the prizes are for each contest.

For each contest there will be:

• A Grand Prize Winner and 2 Runner Up Winners that will be chosen by our Guest Judge.

• A People’s Choice Winner for the photo with the most votes.

Winners will be announced within 10 days of the contest closing.

Rules:

Photos: Share your best shot that fits the contest’s theme. Be creative and original!

Limit: 3 entries per participant

Participation: You must own all legal rights to submitted photos

Photo Format: Color, Black and White, edited formats are accepted

Copyright: You maintain the rights to all of your submissions

Judging: The contest winner will be selected based on the creativity, originality and quality of the photo in accordance to the contest’s theme.

Promotion: Focal Press would like to use the winning photos to promote the contests on our Focalpress.com website, our MasteringPhoto.com blog and our Facebook page. We will check with the winners for permission to use their photos in this capacity before posting.

“Simple Man” by Russ Elkins: There was a high standard among all the finalist entries, which made it hard to choose the best three photographs, but this particular photograph stood out as the clear winner. It’s clearly a setup shot, but looks like an authentic documentary style portrait. The lighting and black and white tones remind me of the work of classic portrait photographers such as Yosuf Karsh.

Runner-ups:

“A part of my fantasies” MortezaJ: I chose this photograph as a runner-up because it works so well as a fashion portrait. I liked the styling, the choice of model, the natural light and soft colour palette, but also the composition and framing. It looks like the result of a great team effort.

“Daddy” by Dorothea Boonstra: This is another deserving runner-up. I like the use of natural daylight and shallow depth of focus, but above all the candid pose where the subject appears oblivious to the presence of the photographer. I suspect a fair amount of tone dodging might have been needed to lift the shadows around the eyes, but this has been done very skilfully to produce a great portrait.

In Close Up Photography in Nature, best-selling authors and nature photography pros, John and Barbara Gerlach share the tips and techniques necessary to successfully photograph the beauty all around you. They begin this book with a brief overview of the fundamentals before delving into some of the more advanced and unique challenges of close up photography. Topics covered include advanced flash techniques specific for close up shooting, as well as a discussion on focus stacking strategies and tilt-shift lenses for getting maximum depth-of-field. The Gerlachs also discuss their strategy of mixing flash with natural light when shooting close up, which opens up all sorts of photographic possibilities – opening up shadows, creating shadows, separating the subject from the background, reducing contrast between the subject and the background, improving the color rendition, shooting sharper images, and much more.

Guest Judges: John & Barbara Gerlach

John and Barbara Gerlach are professional nature photographers and teachers who have taken more than a million wildlife images since 1978 and run seminars and workshops all over the world. Their pictures have been published in Outdoor Photographer, Audubon, Popular Photography, National Wildlife, Sierra, Natural History, Petersen’s Photographic, Ranger Rick, Birder’s World, as well as books published by National Geographic Society, Sierra Club and others. John Gerlach is currently the Associate Editor for Nature Photographer magazine and together they have written 2 additional books for Focal Press – Digital Wildlife Photography and Digital Nature Photography. They are currently working on yet another book, Outdoor Flash Photography.

For this year’s photo contests, Focal Press has partnered with Viewbug.com. Viewbug.com is a beautiful platform and it is very easy to use, as you will see!

ViewBug is an online photo contest community that provides the opportunity for photographers to share photos with chances to win prizes. With ViewBug, everyone can get an opportunity to be discovered. Unlike other photography competitions, ViewBug makes the photography contests fun and social by providing prizes by the best brands in the industry and including the most influential photographers as judges. Participants can also help judges select winners with a social media voting tool. ViewBug provides a slick profile to showcase your photos and different memberships to accommodate any type of photographer.

2014 Photo Contest Structure:

• This year there will be 6 contests

• Each contest will run for 8 weeks

• Entries can be uploaded during the first 6 weeks of the contest window

• During the last 2 weeks of the contest window, the contest will be open for voting.

Prizes:

The prizes are bigger and better than ever! Check to see what the prizes are for each contest.

For each contest there will be:

• A Grand Prize Winner and 2 Runner Up Winners that will be chosen by our Guest Judge.

• A People’s Choice Winner for the photo with the most votes.

Winners will be announced within 10 days of the contest closing.

Rules:

Photos: Share your best shot that fits the contest’s theme. Be creative and original!

Limit: 3 entries per participant

Participation: You must own all legal rights to submitted photos

Photo Format: Color, Black and White, edited formats are accepted

Copyright: You maintain the rights to all of your submissions

Judging: The contest winner will be selected based on the creativity, originality and quality of the photo in accordance to the contest’s theme.

Promotion: Focal Press would like to use the winning photos to promote the contests on our Focalpress.com website, our MasteringPhoto.com blog and our Facebook page. We will check with the winners for permission to use their photos in this capacity before posting.

JOHN8500-Flight: The use of distortion in this photograph lends a remarkable sense of movement, particularly against the dreamlike backdrop. The selective details–the clarity of the bird’s face and right wing amidst the surrounding frenzy–and blue-gray tones are striking in their subtlety. Congratulations on an excellent achievement!

Runner-ups:

Float on: It is amazing how this images makes you feel as if you were in the water right next to the frog, seeing the world through it’s waterlogged eyes. The shot is vivid and real and allows us to explore a new world by revealing more underwater than above.

Spoons: The mixture of textures and light in this photograph is so stimulating it is difficult to look away before becoming hypnotized. The simplicity of the subjects combined with the element of distortion work so well together it makes this masterful shot seem easy.”

Adobe Photoshop CC for Photographers by Photoshop Hall-of-Famer and acclaimed digital imaging professional Martin Evening has been fully updated to include detailed instruction for all of the updates to Photoshop CC on Adobe’s Creative Cloud, including significant new features, such as Color Lookup table exports, Focus Area selections, enhanced Content-Aware filling, and new Spin and Path blur gallery effects. This guide covers all the tools and techniques photographers and professional image editors need to know when using Photoshop, from workflow guidance to core skills to advanced techniques for professional results. Using clear, succinct instruction and real world examples, this guide is the essential reference for Photoshop users of all levels.

Guest Judge: Martin Evening

Inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame in 2008, Martin Evening is an internationally renowned professional photographer. Working principally on studio-based beauty photography, Martin uses Photoshop to retouch or manipulate to some degree nearly every image he produces. This regular everyday experience with the software has enabled him to gain extensive specialist knowledge of Photoshop.

For this year’s photo contests, Focal Press has partnered with Viewbug.com. Viewbug.com is a beautiful platform and it is very easy to use, as you will see!

ViewBug is an online photo contest community that provides the opportunity for photographers to share photos with chances to win prizes. With ViewBug, everyone can get an opportunity to be discovered. Unlike other photography competitions, ViewBug makes the photography contests fun and social by providing prizes by the best brands in the industry and including the most influential photographers as judges. Participants can also help judges select winners with a social media voting tool. ViewBug provides a slick profile to showcase your photos and different memberships to accommodate any type of photographer.

2014 Photo Contest Structure:

• This year there will be 6 contests

• Each contest will run for 8 weeks

• Entries can be uploaded during the first 6 weeks of the contest window

• During the last 2 weeks of the contest window, the contest will be open for voting.

Prizes:

The prizes are bigger and better than ever! Check to see what the prizes are for each contest.

For each contest there will be:

• A Grand Prize Winner and 2 Runner Up Winners that will be chosen by our Guest Judge.

• A People’s Choice Winner for the photo with the most votes.

Winners will be announced within 10 days of the contest closing.

Rules:

Photos: Share your best shot that fits the contest’s theme. Be creative and original!

Limit: 3 entries per participant

Participation: You must own all legal rights to submitted photos

Photo Format: Color, Black and White, edited formats are accepted

Copyright: You maintain the rights to all of your submissions

Judging: The contest winner will be selected based on the creativity, originality and quality of the photo in accordance to the contest’s theme.

Promotion: Focal Press would like to use the winning photos to promote the contests on our Focalpress.com website, our MasteringPhoto.com blog and our Facebook page. We will check with the winners for permission to use their photos in this capacity before posting.

“The way that judging usually goes in photo competitions is that you scan quickly through the selects, and almost immediately see the small group from which the winner will emerge. Although there’s a narrow band of maybes, it’s usually clear cut, and the uncertainties come in fighting it out with other judges! This competition, I have to say, was different. For once I don’t enjoy making a choice, because the overall level among the finalists is so high. I’m actually more concerned about disappointing the ones I do NOT pick, because they all deserve recognition. That said, it’s also a little unusual in that for the overall winner I agree with the People’s Choice of ‘The Perfect Gap @ North Curl Curl’. Simply outstanding. Much more than just camerawork went into achieving this shot.

For the two runners up, I’m choosing ‘Milky Way over the Italian Alps‘ and ‘Shining‘. Choosing between the star shots (all good) was difficult, and among the others I chose ‘Shining’ because, while the subject itself, if you simply described it, is not much—just a flower in morning dew, which has been done many times—the sheer enthusiasm evident in this image, and the explosion of light, pushed it high on my list.”

Lensbaby is a Portland, Oregon based manufacturer of award-winning Creative Effects SLR and mirrorless camera lenses. Lensbaby lenses are the brainchild of Craig Strong, a professional photographer turned inventor who launched the Lensbaby company in 2004.

Learn more about the Lensbaby product family here. Get inspired by the work of accomplished Lensbaby shooters here.

To learn more about the Lensbaby Composer Pro with Double Glass, click here!

About the Book:

If you’ve ever wished you could learn about all of the creative possibilities the Lensbaby offers, this is the book for you! Seeing subjects with a new perspective is at the heart of the Lensbaby experience, and with the essential information found in this book, you’ll be able to take your creative exploration to the next level.

Written by Lensbaby Guru Corey Hilz, Lensbaby: Bending Your Perspective starts off with an overview of each lens in the Lensbaby suite. Then comes the fun stuff! Packed with tips on composition and techniques for capturing your best images, you’ll be immersed in the wonderful world of Lensbaby in no time. On nearly every page you’ll find a full color image created by a Lensbaby expert to inspire your own shooting. You’ll also find complete coverage of all of the Lensbaby accessories, from the Optic Swap System to a macro kit, creative aperture discs, and a super wide angle lens. With this gorgeous and practical book by your side, you’ll never see the world in the same way again.

Corey Hilz focuses his photography on the natural world and has built his stock of photographs from travel and extensive exploration of local areas; believing some of the most interesting subjects are found close to home. Corey is a published author and his photos have been used in magazines, books, newspapers, calendars, brochures and catalogues. He gives lectures, teaches workshops and provides private instruction for those looking to focus their learning. In particular, Corey enjoys working with students in the field, so they may learn to improve their images as they create them.

For this year’s photo contests, Focal Press has partnered with Viewbug.com. Viewbug.com is a beautiful platform and it is very easy to use, as you will see!

ViewBug is an online photo contest community that provides the opportunity for photographers to share photos with chances to win prizes. With ViewBug, everyone can get an opportunity to be discovered. Unlike other photography competitions, ViewBug makes the photography contests fun and social by providing prizes by the best brands in the industry and including the most influential photographers as judges. Participants can also help judges select winners with a social media voting tool. ViewBug provides a slick profile to showcase your photos and different memberships to accommodate any type of photographer.

2014 Photo Contest Structure:

• This year there will be 6 contests

• Each contest will run for 8 weeks

• Entries can be uploaded during the first 6 weeks of the contest window

• During the last 2 weeks of the contest window, the contest will be open for voting.

Prizes:

The prizes are bigger and better than ever! Check to see what the prizes are for each contest.

For each contest there will be:

• A Grand Prize Winner and 2 Runner Up Winners that will be chosen by our Guest Judge.

• A People’s Choice Winner for the photo with the most votes.

Winners will be announced within 10 days of the contest closing.

Rules:

Photos: Share your best shot that fits the contest’s theme. Be creative and original!

Limit: 3 entries per participant

Participation: You must own all legal rights to submitted photos

Photo Format: Color, Black and White, edited formats are accepted

Copyright: You maintain the rights to all of your submissions

Judging: The contest winner will be selected based on the creativity, originality and quality of the photo in accordance to the contest’s theme.

Promotion: Focal Press would like to use the winning photos to promote the contests on our Focalpress.com website, our MasteringPhoto.com blog and our Facebook page. We will check with the winners for permission to use their photos in this capacity before posting.